The reason for this decision, because made in executive session, cannot be positively known. This, as stated and believed at the time, was because the convention had authorized the Spanish government to present its Amistad claim, like any other claim, before the Board of Commissioners for decision. This claim, it will be recollected, was for the payment to the Spanish owners of the value of certain slaves, for which the Spanish government held the United States to be responsible under the treaty with Spain of the 27th October, 1795. Such was the evidence in its favor, that three Presidents of the United States had recommended to Congress to make an appropriation for its payment, and a bill for this purpose had passed the Senate. The validity of the claim, it is proper to observe, was not recognized by the convention. In this respect it was placed on the same footing with all the other claims of the parties, with the exception of the Cuban claims. All the Spanish government obtained for it was simply a hearing before the Board, and this could not be denied with any show of impartiality. Besides, it is quite certain that no convention could have been concluded without such a provision. It was most probably the extreme views of the Senate at the time against slavery, and their reluctance to recognize it even so far as to permit a foreign claimant, although under the sanction of a treaty, to raise a question before the Board which might involve its existence, that caused the rejection of the convention. Under the impulse of such sentiments, the claims of our fellow-citizens have been postponed if not finally defeated. Indeed, the Cuban claimants, learning that the objections in the Senate arose from the Amistad claim, made a formal offer to remove the difficulty by deducting its amount from the sum due to them, but this of course could not be accepted.[44] Footnote 44: Buchanan’s Defence, pp. 258-260; written and published in 1865-’66. The following account of an expedition which President Buchanan found it necessary to send to Paraguay, is also taken from his Defence of his Administration: